COURSE DESCRIPTION

                CSCI 524 - Distributed Operating System Design

Description:    Analysis of operating system design principles
                for multiple computers.  A distributed operating
                system model is presented and compared to selected
                network and distributed operating system examples.
                Prerequisite: 423 or equivalent. (3).

Textbook:       Tanenbaum, A. & Maarten van Steen, Distributed Systems:
                Principles and Paradigms (2nd Edition)
                Prentice-Hall, 2006.
                Plus various research articles

Coordinator:    P. Tobin Maginnis, Associate Professor of Computer
                and Information Science

Goals:          In depth analysis of distributed operating system
                design including a model presentation, principles,
                design tradeoffs and implementations details.

Prerequisite by Topic

        1.      Familiarity with a general purpose high-level
                language such as C, Pascal, or Ada.
        2.      Familiarity with general programming concepts.
        3.      Knowledge of basic operating system principles.
        4.      Knowledge of the Linux operating system.

Topics: 1.      Introduction to distributed systems
        2.      Communication models in distributed systems
        3.      Synchronization issues
        4.      Processes versus Processors
        5.      Logical versus literal file systems
        6.      Distributed shared memory
        7.      Example systems
        8.      Three tests

Graduate vs undergraduate requirements

        Undergraduates are responsible for the lecture portion while
        graduate students are responsible for lecture and laboratory
        course components. In this way undergraduates will
        understand the theory and principles while graduate students
        must demonstrate mastery of these concepts though programming
        assignments.

Laboratory Projects

        See: http://pix.cs.olemiss.edu/csci423

Course Grading
        Undergraduate:
        Three written tests @ 100 points each            300
                                                         ---
        Total course points                              300

        Graduate:
        Three written tests @ 100 points each            300
        Programming project                              100
                                                         ---
        Total course points                              400

        First ten questions of the final must replace a previous
        test, last ten bonus questions count a total of one letter
        grade worth of points (e.g. 30 for 300, 40 for 400 and so
        on).  But, access to bonus points require that you score
        your average or better from the regular tests on the first
        ten questions of the final. 

        Grading scale for 300 points:
        370 and up -> A
        340 to 369 -> B
        310 to 339 -> C
        280 to 309 -> D
        Up  to 279 -> F

        Grading scale for 400 points:
        360 and up -> A
        320 to 359 -> B
        280 to 319 -> C
        240 to 279 -> D
        Up  to 239 -> F

Course Objectives

         Upon course completion the student should be able to:

         1. Describe categories of distributed and parallel computer
            architectures independent of circuit packaging.

         2. Compare and contrast various distributed operating system
            designs based upon recourse sharing, reliability, and
            performance design goals.

         3. Describe system architecture and operating design parameters
            which significantly impact algorithm performance.

         4. Describe operating system design elements offer performance
            improvements over other resource sharing distributed
            operating systems designs.

         5. Describe the Global State Problem in terms of process and
            file naming, interprocess communication and synchronization,
            and resource management.

         6. Describe the design tradeoffs of distributed file systems.